0507-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 7 May 14, Wednesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Kurt Mueller
THEME: It’s Showtime … each of today’s themed answers are famous words used as intros on television shows:

17A. Ed McMahon intro words : HERE’S JOHNNY!
24A. Lawrence Welk intro words : A ONE AND A TWO …
39A. Chevy Chase intro words : LIVE FROM NEW YORK!
51A. Jackie Gleason intro words : AND AWAY WE GO!

63A. Possible title for this puzzle : IT’S SHOWTIME!

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 9m 29s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

11. Tippler : SOT
Our word “sot” comes from the Old English “sott”, meaning a fool. The word “sot” started to be associated with alcohol and not just foolery in the late 1500s.

14. Drop ___ (start to strip) : TROU
“Trou” is short for “trousers”.

16. When tripled, a dance move : CHA
The cha-cha-cha is a Latin dance with origins in Cuba, where it was introduced by composer Enrique Jorrin in 1953.

17. Ed McMahon intro words : HERE’S JOHNNY!
Of course Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show”. McMahon was trained as a fighter in WWII, but did not see action. However he saw a lot of action in the following conflict as he did fly 85 combat missions in Korea.

20. ___ nous : ENTRE
“Entre nous” is French for “between us”.

21. French vote : OUI
“Oui” is “yes” in French, and “non” is “no”.

22. Synthesizer pioneer Robert : MOOG
Robert Moog invented the Moog Synthesizer in the sixties, an electronic device that he used to produce music. I used to own a few of his albums, including a Moog version of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”. What a great performance that was …

23. Charles on a piano : RAY
Ray Charles came up with his stage name by dropping the family name from his real moniker, Ray Charles Robinson. His life was a wild ride, well represented in the excellent biopic called “Ray” released in 2004 and starring Jamie Foxx in the title role. Ray Charles was married twice and fathered 12 children with nine different women. As I said, a wild ride …

24. Lawrence Welk intro words : A ONE AND A TWO …
Lawrence Welk used to count into his performances with “A one and a two …”. He even had a licence plate “A1ANA2”.

28. Grub, e.g. : LARVA
Grubs are the larvae of certain beetles.

30. Way out of N.Y.C. : LIRR
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is the commuter rail service that runs all over Long Island, New York with 124 stations and 700 miles of track. More people use the LIRR than any other commuter railroad in the US. It is also the only commuter railroad in the country that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

31. Italian ballad subject : AMOR
“Amor” is the Italian word for “love”.

33. Will ___, “The Realistic Joneses” playwright : ENO
Will Eno is an American playwright working in Brooklyn, New York. That said, Eno’s plays are mainly produced across the pond in the UK.

35. Setting for many van Gogh paintings : ARLES
A few years ago I had the privilege of living just a short car-ride from the beautiful city of Arles in the South of France. Although Arles has a long and colorful history, the Romans had a prevailing influence over the city’s design. Arles has a spectacular Roman amphitheater, arch, circus as well as old walls that surround the center of the city. In more modern times, it was a place Vincent van Gogh often visited, and where he painted his famous “Cafe Terrace at Night”, as well as “Bedroom in Arles”.

Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who seems to have had a very tortured existence. Van Gogh only painted for the last ten years of his life, and enjoyed very little celebrity while alive. Today many of his works are easily recognized, and fetch staggering sums in auction houses. Van Gogh suffered from severe depression for many of his final years. When he was only 37, he walked into a field with a revolver and shot himself in the chest. He managed to drag himself back to the inn where he was staying but died there two days later.

39. Chevy Chase intro words : LIVE FROM NEW YORK!
“Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night” is a phrase that opens the NBC show “Saturday Night Live”. The catchphrase was first spoken by Chevy Chase, on the first show, way back in 1975. Making the announcement is a popular gig for presidential and vice presidential candidates, namely Bob Dole, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and John McCain. The only sitting US President to deliver the “Live from New York …” was President Gerald Ford.

43. Diamond datum : STEAL
Players steal bases on a baseball diamond.

45. When doubled, a Billy Idol #1 hit : MONY
“Mony Mony” was a hit for Tommy James and Shondells back in 1968. Billy Idol came out with a successful cover version of the song in 1987. The title of the song apparently was inspired by a MONY sign on the Mutual of New York (MONY) Building in Manhattan.

Billy Idol is an English rock musician, whose real name is William Broad. He started out with the punk band Generation X, and then made it big as a solo artist, helped along by some well received MTV music videos, in the early days of the genre.

46. ___ Cass : MAMA
Cass Elliot was one of the four singers in the Mamas and the Papas, a sensational group from the sixties. Elliot was performing sold-out concerts in London in 1974 when she was found dead one morning, having had a heart attack. She was only 32 years old. Eerily, she died in the same flat (on loan from Harry Nilsson) in which the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, would die just four years later.

49. Broad valleys : DALES
Dales are open valleys, especially in the Lowlands of Scotland and in the North of England. In the same locales, it is common to find dales flanked by “fells”, which are the mountains or hills flanking the valley.

51. Jackie Gleason intro words : AND AWAY WE GO!
Jackie Gleason is an icon in the comedic acting world. His most famous role on the small screen was of course Ralph Kramden on “The Honeymooners”. On the big screen two of his memorable roles were Minnesota Fats in 1961’s “The Hustler” and Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the “Smokey and the Bandit” films. Gleason was also noted for his interest in the paranormal. He built a house in the shape of a UFO that he called “The Mothership”, and he also claimed that President Nixon took him on a secret visit to Homestead AFB in Florida where he saw an alien spaceship and dead extraterrestrials!

55. Summer setting in Mass. : EDT
Eastern daylight savings time (EDT)

59. Teachers’ grp. : NEA
The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the country, and mainly represents public school teachers.

60. Conger hunter : EELER
Conger eels can grow to be very, very large, perhaps up to 10 feet in length.

62. Qt. or gal. : AMT
The unit of volume “quart” is so called because it is one quarter of a gallon.

The name of our fluid measure called a “gallon” ultimately comes from the Medieval Latin term “galleta” meaning “bucket, pail”.

67. Pan producer, perhaps : CRITIC
To pan something is to criticize it harshly.

70. Settings of Delacroix and Ingres paintings : HAREMS
“Harem” is a Turkish word, derived from the Arabic for “forbidden place”. Traditionally a harem was the female quarters in a household in which a man had more than one wife. Not only wives (and concubines) would use the harem, but also young children and other female relatives. The main point was that no men were allowed in the area.

“The Women of Algiers (in their Apartment)” is a painting by Eugène Delacroix that is set in a harem, as is “The Turkish Bath” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Eugène Delacroix was a French artist, considered by many to be the leader of the French Romantic School.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French painter, most famous for his portrait work.

Down
2. Where the action is : ARENA
Our term “arena” comes from the Latin “harena”, a place of combat. Originally “harena” was used to describe sand or a sandy place. Those Ancient Roman places of combat were covered with sand to soak up blood.

3. Score just before winning a game, say : FORTY-LOVE
The origin of the 15, 30, 40 scoring system in a game of tennis is disputed. One theory is that a 60-minute clock face was used to keep score. Points won would advance in quarters, 15, 30, 45 and 60 for game. When the score “deuce” was introduced to avoid a win by a one-point difference, the score of 45 was pushed back to 40, so that 50 could indicate deuce.

In tennis the score of zero is designated as “love”. Some people believe that this usage originates from the French “l’oeuf” (meaning “the egg”). The idea is that the written character “0” looks like an egg.

5. British rule in India : RAJ
The period of colonial rule by the British in South Asia from 1858 to 1947 is referred to as the British Raj. Prior to 1858, the area was ruled by a private enterprise, the British East India Company. “Raj” is the Hindi word for “reign”.

6. W.W. II command : ETO
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE) was in command of the European Theater of Operations (ETO) during WWII.

7. Small salmon: Var. : COHOE
The Coho salmon is dark blue with silver along the side of its body, but only during the phase of its life while it is in the ocean. When spawning and heading up into a freshwater river, the Coho has bright red sides.

8. Like pansies and petunias : ANNUAL
The garden flower called the pansy takes its name from the French word “pensée” meaning “thought”. This name was chosen as the flower was often used as a symbol of remembrance.

The flowering plants known as petunias are in a genus that related to the tobacco plant. The name “petunia” comes from the obsolete French word “petun” meaning “tobacco plant”.

9. Bologna sandwiches? : PANINI
In Italy, a sandwich made from sliced bread is called a “tramezzino”, while sandwiches made from non-sliced breads are called “panini” (singular “panino”). We’ve imported the term “panini” into English to mean a pressed and toasted sandwich.

Bologna is a city in northern Italy. The city is home to the University of Bologna that was founded way back in 1088. The University of Bologna is the oldest existing university in the world.

13. Letter between sierra and uniform : TANGO
The NATO phonetic alphabet is also called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) phonetic alphabet. It goes Alfa, Bravo, Charlie etc.

26. iPod model : NANO
The iPod Nano is the successor to the iPod Mini and was introduced to the market at the end of 2005. There have been seven versions of the Nano to date and the current Nano as well as playing tunes is an FM player, records voice memos, has a pedometer and can connect with external devices (like a heart monitor, maybe) using Bluetooth technology.

27. Command in Uno : DRAW
In my youth I remember being taught a great card game, by a German acquaintance of mine, called Mau Mau. Years later I discovered that Uno is basically the same game, but played with a purpose-printed deck instead of the regular deck of playing cards that’s used for Mau Mau. I hear that Mau Mau is derived from the game called Crazy Eights.

31. Gore and Green : ALS
Al Gore was born in Washington DC, the son of Al Gore, Sr., then a US Representative for the state of Tennessee. After deferring his military service in order to attend Harvard, the younger Gore became eligible for the draft on graduation. Many of his classmates found ways of avoiding the draft, but Gore decided to serve and even took the “tougher” option of joining the army as an enlisted man. Actor Tommy Lee Jones shared a house with Gore in college and says that his buddy told him that even if he could find a way around the draft, someone with less options than him would have to go in his place and that was just wrong.

Al Green is a gospel and soul music singer. Green was born in Arkansas, where he started out as a gospel singer and moved into R&B. In 1974, he was assaulted by a girlfriend who burned him badly on much of his body by pouring boiling grits over him (and then she committed suicide). The incident changed Green’s life and he turned to the church, becoming a pastor in Memphis in 1976. He continued to record music, but never really enjoyed the same success that he had in the early seventies with hits like “Let’s Stay Together” and “I’m Still In Love With You”.

32. Cambridge sch. : MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 and first offered classes in 1865, in the Mercantile building in Boston. Today’s magnificent campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge opened in 1916.

34. Yoga chants : OMS
“Om” is a sacred mystic word from the Hindu tradition. “Om” is sometimes used as a mantra, a focus for the mind in meditation.

In the West we tend to think of yoga as a physical discipline, a means of exercise that uses specific poses to stretch and strengthen muscles. While it is true that the ancient Indian practice of yoga does involve such physical discipline, the corporeal aspect of the practice plays a relatively small part in the whole philosophy. Other major components are meditation, ethical behavior, breathing and contemplation.

36. Ship sinkers, in an old saying : LOOSE LIPS
“Loose lips sinks ships” is used as a warning that unguarded talk can be dangerous. The phrase originated during WWII when it was coined by the US War Advertising Council for use on posters.

38. “The daily bread of the eyes,” per Ralph Waldo Emerson : SKY
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an essayist and poet who was active in the mid-1800s. Most of the essays that Emerson wrote were composed originally as lectures and then revised for print.

40. Hubris, for Icarus : FLAW
Daedalus was a master craftsman of Greek mythology who was tasked with creating the Labyrinth on the island of Crete that was to house the Minotaur. After the Labyrinth was completed, King Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in a tower, so that he could not spread word of his work. Daedalus fabricated wings so that he and Icarus could escape by flying off the island. Despite being warned by his father, Icarus flew too close to the sun so that the wax holding the wings’ feathers in place melted. Icarus drowned in the sea, and Daedalus escaped.

“Hubris” is arrogance or overbearing pride. The term is rooted in the Greek “hybris”, a term that originally was used to describe “presumption toward the gods”.

41. Like Rodin’s “The Thinker” : NUDE
Rodin’s famous sculpture known as “The Thinker” has been reproduced many times. Rodin’s original version of “The Thinker” is actually a detail in a much larger work known as “The Gates of Hell”. The original plaster version of “The Gates of Hell” can be seen at the magnificent Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

42. Slate, e.g. : EMAG
“Slate” is an online magazine founded in 1996. “Slate” was originally owned by Microsoft and was part of the MSN online offering. The magazine has been available for free since 1999 (it is ad-supported) and has been owned by the Washington Post Company since 2004.

47. Words to live by : MANTRA
A “mantra” is a word that is used as a focus for the mind while meditating.

50. MGM founder Marcus : LOEW
Marcus Loew was a New Yorker, born into a poor Jewish family. He started out in a penny arcade business and used its profits to buy into a nickelodeon. He built a whole chain of movie theaters, and then moved into the production of films so that he could guarantee supply of features that he could show in his theaters. Eventually he pulled together the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film production company, passing away just three years after he inked the deal.

52. All-Star shortstop Garciaparra : NOMAR
Nomar Garciaparra is one of only thirteen players to have hit two grand slams during a single game in the Majors. He accomplished the feat in 1999 for the Boston Red Sox against the Seattle Mariners.

57. Former Mississippi senator Lott : TRENT
Trent Lott was raised Democrat in Mississippi, but served in Congress as a Republican. Lott ran into trouble for remarks he made that were interpreted as being racially motivated, and ended up resigning in 2007.

61. French CD holder : ETUI
An etui is an ornamental case used to hold small items, in particular sewing needles. We imported both the case design and the word “etui” from France. The French also have a modern usage of “etui”, using the term to depict a case for carrying CDs.

63. I, in Innsbruck : ICH
“Ich” is the German for “I”, as in “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner), the famous words of support uttered by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in a speech in West Berlin. The supposed translation of “Ich bin ein Berliner” as “I am a jelly doughnut” … that’s just an urban legend. President Kennedy’s use of German was perfectly correct.

The Austrian state of Tyrol has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, especially if you love the mountains. It is in the very west of the country, just south of Bavaria in Germany. The capital city is the famous Innsbruck.

64. “Tell ___,” 1962 hit by the Exciters : HIM
“Tell Him” was a hit for the Exciters in 1962 and 1963. The same song was previously recorded as “Tell Her” earlier in 1962.

65. Mil. training site : OCS
Officer Candidate School (OCS)

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. None-too-bright sorts : OAFS
5. Summaries : RECAPS
11. Tippler : SOT
14. Drop ___ (start to strip) : TROU
15. Lacking in harmony : ATONAL
16. When tripled, a dance move : CHA
17. Ed McMahon intro words : HERE’S JOHNNY!
19. Have : OWN
20. ___ nous : ENTRE
21. French vote : OUI
22. Synthesizer pioneer Robert : MOOG
23. Charles on a piano : RAY
24. Lawrence Welk intro words : A ONE AND A TWO …
28. Grub, e.g. : LARVA
30. Way out of N.Y.C. : LIRR
31. Italian ballad subject : AMOR
33. Will ___, “The Realistic Joneses” playwright : ENO
35. Setting for many van Gogh paintings : ARLES
39. Chevy Chase intro words : LIVE FROM NEW YORK!
43. Diamond datum : STEAL
44. Tidy ___ : SUM
45. When doubled, a Billy Idol #1 hit : MONY
46. ___ Cass : MAMA
49. Broad valleys : DALES
51. Jackie Gleason intro words : AND AWAY WE GO!
55. Summer setting in Mass. : EDT
58. Inside dope : POOP
59. Teachers’ grp. : NEA
60. Conger hunter : EELER
62. Qt. or gal. : AMT
63. Possible title for this puzzle : IT’S SHOWTIME!
66. Tattle (on) : RAT
67. Pan producer, perhaps : CRITIC
68. In the know about : UPON
69. Sample : TRY
70. Settings of Delacroix and Ingres paintings : HAREMS
71. Ain’t fixed? : ISN’T

Down
1. Remaining : OTHER
2. Where the action is : ARENA
3. Score just before winning a game, say : FORTY-LOVE
4. Litigant : SUER
5. British rule in India : RAJ
6. W.W. II command : ETO
7. Small salmon: Var. : COHOE
8. Like pansies and petunias : ANNUAL
9. Bologna sandwiches? : PANINI
10. Like some winks : SLY
11. Get moving : SCOOT
12. “What a surprise!” : OH WOW!
13. Letter between sierra and uniform : TANGO
18. Scorch : SEAR
22. Proposal words : MARRY ME
25. Through with : OVER
26. iPod model : NANO
27. Command in Uno : DRAW
29. Hotel handout : AREA MAP
31. Gore and Green : ALS
32. Cambridge sch. : MIT
34. Yoga chants : OMS
36. Ship sinkers, in an old saying : LOOSE LIPS
37. Suffix with east or west : -ERN
38. “The daily bread of the eyes,” per Ralph Waldo Emerson : SKY
40. Hubris, for Icarus : FLAW
41. Like Rodin’s “The Thinker” : NUDE
42. Slate, e.g. : EMAG
47. Words to live by : MANTRA
48. Response to captain’s orders : AYE, SIR
50. MGM founder Marcus : LOEW
51. Spaced out? : APART
52. All-Star shortstop Garciaparra : NOMAR
53. Daft : DOTTY
54. It may be hazardous : WASTE
56. Speed ___ : DEMON
57. Former Mississippi senator Lott : TRENT
61. French CD holder : ETUI
63. I, in Innsbruck : ICH
64. “Tell ___,” 1962 hit by the Exciters : HIM
65. Mil. training site : OCS

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